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Get Out of the (White) House

By Lou Cannon February 12, 2009 9:00 pmFebruary 12, 2009 9:00 pm

Almost from its inception, the presidency of the United States has been a heavy weight on its occupants. Thomas Jefferson famously called the presidency a “splendid misery.” John Quincy Adams described his four years in the White House as
“the four most miserable years of my life.” Herbert Hoover wrote “The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson,” a sympathetic account of Wilson’s troubled presidency, then suffered through his
own presidential ordeal. Some presidents, including Hoover and Jimmy Carter, aged noticeably during a single term in the White House.

Obama, like F.D.R. and Reagan, is smart not to let the job dictate his daily routine.

Going against this grain, however, there have been presidents who thrived on the burdens of the office no matter what the condition of the nation under their command. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the champ. In a little-remembered
book, “F.D.R., My Boss,” Mr. Roosevelt’s secretary Grace Tully affectionately described how he cheerfully added to his stamp collection, dabbled in architecture, played cards and “made
a ritual of the cocktail hour” where serious talk was avoided during the depths of the Great Depression and World War II. Happiness was part of F.D.R.’s makeup. “From the bottom of his heart
he wants [people] to be as happy as he is,” wrote his adviser Raymond Moley.

Ronald Reagan was also a happy president who did not allow the office to change the habits of a lifetime. He told me he enjoyed the job. Kenneth Duberstein, his last White House chief of staff, has recounted how Reagan
often ended serious staff meetings with a bright anecdote, lifting the spirits of aides. Like F.D.R., his onetime idol, Mr. Reagan kept to his habits during his eight years as president. He was an avid horseman
who continued to ride at every opportunity. Although he liked Camp David well enough, his haven was Rancho del Cielo, his “ranch in the sky” in the mountain country northwest of Santa Barbara, where
he spent, in total, nearly a year of his presidency. When his closest aide, Michael Deaver, urged Reagan early in his first term to postpone a ranch vacation to avoid media criticism, he replied with passion: “Look,
Mike, you can do a lot of things, but you’re not going to tell me when to go to the ranch. I’m 70 years old and I figure that ranch is going to add some years onto my life, and I’m going to
enjoy it.”

It’s too early to know how much time President Obama will be able to spend surfing or swimming in faraway Hawaii, but it already seems evident that he has a high comfort level in the White House. For one thing,
he follows his own timetable, as Reagan did. Before he was elected, Reagan grumbled when his staff awakened him too early. Stuart Spencer, an adviser, told him to get used to it because when he was president “that
fellow from the National Security Council” would be there to brief him at 7:30 a.m. every day. “Well, he’s going to have a helluva long wait,” Mr. Reagan said.

President Obama, we are told, usually arrives in the Oval Office a little before 9 a.m., some two hours later than his predecessor, George W. Bush. This enables him to read the newspapers before coming to work (as F.D.R.
and Reagan also did) and to spend time with daughters Malia and Sasha before they go to school. “I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, David Axelrod, told The Times.

Even happy presidents struggle to stay connected with ordinary Americans. F.D.R. did it with “fireside chats,” radio speeches that made use of the new medium of the day. In the first of these chats, on
March 12, 1933, he urged 60 million Americans to put their money into banks. The radio audience included Ronald Reagan, then 21, who remembered it all his life. Indeed, Mr. Reagan’s 1980 campaign mantra —
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” — was a variation of an F.D.R. line in a 1934 fireside chat.

As president, Mr. Reagan reinstated radio to its former primacy, instituting the weekly Saturday radio speech that every president has used since. Mr. Obama has put a modern spin on the radio speech by also delivering
it on YouTube. Mr. Reagan also took the campaign for his economic program on the road, speaking to Americans directly, as Mr. Obama did this week in Indiana and Florida.

Communications, for Mr. Reagan, also meant letter writing. Although some of his staff considered it a waste of time, he often spent two or three hours a day answering letters that had been written to him by ordinary
citizens, a practice he had followed since Hollywood.

For Mr. Obama, the first president of the Internet Age, staying in touch means holding onto his Blackberry. It’s a healthy sign that he overcame security and bureaucratic reservations to keep this device, for
he is quite right in saying that it is too easy for presidents to become isolated in “the bubble” of the presidency.

Being comfortable in one’s own skin does not guarantee a successful presidency. If it did, George W. Bush would be accorded higher marks than he receives from most historians and the American people. But optimism,
a sense of normalcy, and a determination to keep in touch with the people you have inspired are useful attributes for any president. They helped F.D.R. become, in his words, first “Dr. New Deal” and
then “Dr. Win the War.” They helped Reagan overcome the pessimism of malaise and the dismay of recession. And they have kept Americans rooting for Mr. Obama despite some early stumbles. As F.D.R. and
Reagan knew, most Americans are optimists who believe in better days ahead for themselves and their country. “Yes we can” has resonance.

I can’t see how “Bail Out Barry” will be able to pass his tax and spend policies without being outside the White House, sweet talking the crowds, hugging and kissing people hard on their luck,
while in reality the majority of people will continue to suffer without any direct assistance from the Oval Office. Future generations will inherit our irresponsible and accumulating debt thanks to “Bail
Out Barry.”

Reagan’s “happiness” was that of a fool’s paradise. He was cheerful because he never let the facts disturb his ideological convictions. I am fed up with the canonization of Reagan, the
self-satisfied smiling avuncular extremist who started us down the road that led to George W. Bush, the neocon fantasy of world domination, the collapse of our economy, and the undoing of the American Dream.

“Yes We Can” has to become his by word…. He will have miles to go before he even gets to normalcy of the econ situation, he will have miles to go before he gets popular tones from the public,
he will have miles to go before that turns to applause and kudos from the fellas of both houses of Congress and the outside world and people at large. He needs to take some unpopular decisions and do what is
right for the improving the health of the Economy in the LONG TERM not a QUICK FIX!

I am with you Obama! But lets not bail out each one and let some crooks go to jail, Let some Banks, Companies FAIL and go bust yes we will see loss of JOBS but we can create new ones thro new CASH infusion!

It’s a stressful job, why make it any more so? If you’re prez, you should dictate how your office runs and run it to suit yourself. Obama should try to act like a normal human being as much as possible,
otheriwse he might forget how normal human beings feel.

Lincoln also remained a man of the people throughout his presidency. Because of the pressing needs of the Civil War, he wasn’t able to “Get out of the White House” as often as modern-day presidents,
but he did meet with never-ending stream of people who traveled to the White House to see him. He also made short trips to meet with the troops and spoke with many one-on-one.

FDR and Reagan used radio to stay in touch, while Obama uses YouTube. Long before, Lincoln was a frequent user of the telegraph, the first form of electronic long-distance communications.

When told that newspapers were criticizing him during the Civil War, Lincoln replied that he knew better how the people felt than the newspaper editorialists . . . and was confident that he had the support of most
Americans.

Should he be happy? Should he be worried? Should he live in the bubble?

I think the real question is this: under which circumstances can <
> human being render the most; give his/her best; accomplish the most in the best possible way?

And a part of the answer to that is the fact that the inner state of being of such a human being plays an enormously important role. A good inner state, a sense of well-being and happiness, a balance between the
personal and the professional – even if the person is the president of the USA – form part of that. (Understanding the job you are doing, the intellectual capacity to deal with it, global vision,
compassion, knowing with whom you need to surround yourself, keeping an ear to the ground, are only hints of other requirements that should also be in place).

And – at least according to this article – it sounds as though Obama has a handle on a good part of this.

If you expect the prez to be up and available at 3 am when the call comes, come on, be fair, he can surely be accepted to come to work at 9 am. Also, he is a young family man who sees his daughters and family as
a par of his quotidien life.

Obama is level headed enough to see that success in bipartisanship does not come so easy or quickly. It takes give and take and confidence building. It also takes demonstrating to all that your way of thinking produces
results. That means time.

Even if the financial crisis had not assumed this proportion and priority, I think Obama’s style would have been the same. He has set out to convince all Americans (and others) that the two political parties
need not fight like rivals. They now forget that they have the interest of the nation in common. If the mindset can be changed, all other achievements or failures would pale in comparison. This does not require
leadership skill but conviction.

If you expect the prez to be up and available at 3 am when the call comes, come on, be fair, he can surely be accepted to come to work at 9 am. Also, he is a young family man who sees his daughters and family as
a part of his quotidien life. Talk about work life balance.

Obama is level headed enough to see that success in bipartisanship does not come so easy or quickly. It takes give and take and confidence building. It also takes demonstrating to all that your way of thinking produces
results. That means time.

Even if the financial crisis had not assumed this proportion and priority, I think Obama’s style would have been the same. He has set out to convince all Americans (and others) that the two political parties
need not fight like rivals. They now forget that they have the interest of the nation in common. If the mindset can be changed, all other achievements or failures would pale in comparison. This does not require
leadership skill but conviction.

This article is gas. Trying to compare Reagan with FDR and referring to only the positives with this Reagan. The mess we are in right now stems directly back to Reagan’s emphasis with deregulation and the
allowance of neo-cons to penetrate our foreign policy regarding the Middle East. Jimmy Carter is now vindicated through Barack Obama and Obama’s victory is symbolically President’s Carter unfulfilled
second term that is needed now more than ever. It’s back to sanity after 29 years of too much republican control or influence emanating from Reagan’s election forward to now. Reagan advocated for
the deregulation which has allowed this economic collapse due to lack of oversight on Wall Street and in the housing foreclosure crisis. His firing of the airline traffic controllers will never be forgotten.
His allowances for the anti-public school forces have culminated in massive home schooling along with private and charter ones that have been a successful wave of re-segregating and thus polarizing America.
Reagan was bad news period. The man was one of our most slavishly pro-Israel stooges that has also culminated in our fanatically and lopsided pro-Israel foreign policy there at the expense of killing little
children in Gaza and Lebanon and making a mockery out of American Christian values. But I suppose that wouldn’t matter because those are just Jews and Muslims going at it. But I thought it was the Holy
Land? Yeah right. Reagan was allowed to ride the neo-con, capitalist deception victory to the point of giving this half rate actor credit for what Gorbachev rightly deserves. This has all come full circle now
and President Carter has been vindicated. Thank God Carter has survived until today to witness this and become perhaps America’s greatest and most productive former president ever. How dare you compare
Reagan to Obama or FDR. That is a sleazy attempt to whitewash the republican culpability for what Obama has had to inherit.

Jesus, what claptrap. How many Nicaraguan babies were burned to death by American bombs & Reagan’s campaign to aid “the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers”, our proxy terrorists the
contras in Central America. How many early AIDS sufferers might have gotten help sooner, if Reagan had spent more time in real California neighborhoods instead of playing Howdy Doody up at his luxury play ranch.

“Optimism… kept Americans rooting for Mr. Obama despite some early stumbles”. Really? With a penchant for drama despite his media given label, Mr. Obama has hardly exuded optimism. Just how
do words like “catastrophe” and phrases like “our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse” instill optimism?

Beyond that he epitomizes arrogance as in his response to Republican congressman Eric Cantor.

Lastly in noting that “historians” would accord Bush higher marks than he has received thus far, perhaps you would allow for the fact that fewer than four weeks have passed since his presidency. Two
years later, it may well be that people (and historians) actually yearn for his presidency.

Three weeks in and Obama is running around pitching a pork ridden bill that he has not even read. No one has. 60 thousand dollars a hour and chedder cheese burgers at 30 thousand feet in Air Force One is fun. The
limousine that comes along and the huge entourage to run the show add to the cost. Two weeks in Obama needed a rest at Camp David. Let’s get serious here. We are in dire straits and the article pushes
more rest and recreation for Obama who has appointed people from the IRS most wanted list, and unqualified inexperienced people to important offices such as CIA Director? The White House is a great hotel,
with a gym and grounds to run on. Let Obama stop campaigning and go to work.

It’s refreshing to learn that the President is spending “quality time” with his girls, Michelle and Mrs Robinson. Long hours, as proven by President Bush, do not automatically mean success.
It’s what you do with the time not how much time you use.

We have a President who not only speaks in complete sentences, gets syntax and subject/verb agreement, but actually reads newspapers daily, including this one I presume, that may give him the dickens on occasion,
but keep him connected. Perhaps he’s even watching Hannity to see what the illogical right wing is doing. Keep it up!

This young man will go down in history as one of the truly great Presidents. Why? Not because of his successes,and there will be many, but because our nation sees,appreciates and yes,loves, this man of high moral
purposeandtsteadiness of character. If he stumbles,he will arise; if he fails, he will try again and I and millions of others truly believe he has restored honor and integrity to the office of President. If
I seem effusive it is because I am 84 years old and I am humbly grateful that in my waining years I will see the steady beam of Barack Obama,s efforts to restore our beloved country to its former greatness.
Thank you, D. wARD

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